Concord: Central county family justice center a ‘one-stop shop’ for victims of abuse

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Gilbert Herrera, center, of Concord, visits with Dorea Stevens, right, of the Bay Area Crisis Nursery during the open house for the new Central Family Justice Center in Concord, Calif., on Thursday, March 19, 2015. (Dan Rosenstrauch/Bay Area News Group)

Detective Kevin Choe, center, of the Concord Police Department Domestic Violence Unit, gives a tour to a group of the detective work area he and other detective's will work inside the new Central Family Justice Center in Concord, Calif., on Thursday, March 19, 2015. (Dan Rosenstrauch/Bay Area News Group)

CONCORD – When Concord police Chief Guy Swanger was a rookie cop fresh out of college, he said there was nothing more humbling than having to intervene in the relationships of couples who had been married longer than he had been alive.

“You knew the situation was going to escalate into violence but you had no solutions, you had nowhere to turn,” Swanger said. “There wasn’t an officer out there who didn’t think, ‘I wish there was something I could do.'”

It’s no coincidence, then, that several decades later, police chiefs from across the county joined with public officials today to celebrate the grand opening of the Central County Family Justice Center in Concord, he said.

The service center, which is the second in the county, houses law enforcement, social service and community organizations under one roof, creating a “one-stop shop” for people who need help escaping domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault and human trafficking situations.

Before the establishment of the consolidated family centers, victims of abuse had to travel to many locations for services that were geographically dispersed and administered by separate agencies with their own unique processes, Family Justice Center Executive Director Susun Kim said.

Victims might need a restraining order, to talk to a counselor, to find both emergency shelter and long-term housing, to apply for public benefits, and the list continues, Kim said.

“Our bureaucracy cares more about the process than the victim,” said Concord Mayor Tim Grayson. “The Family Justice Center removes the bureaucracy and it becomes victim-centric, not process-oriented.”

That allows the center’s staff to focus not only on managing the immediate crisis at hand, but also on developing a plan for long-term safety and stability.

“By really focusing on health services, jobs and education and also figuring out budgeting and financial management, how to save money and develop community that’s what makes our clients feel safer and live safer in their own community,” Kim said.

Swanger said the idea for the Central County Family Justice Center came about shortly after he was hired as the police chief in Jan. 2011.

When he was a captain in the San Diego Police Department, Swanger said his chief asked him to serve as the executive director of the Family Justice Center in San Diego, the first in the country.

Swanger said after the center opened, domestic violence calls went down by nearly half and domestic violence murders were reduced four-fold.

The first Family Justice Center in Contra Costa County opened in 2011 at a temporary location inside the Richmond Police Department’s Hilltop Mall station. Richmond police Chief Chris Magnus said a permanent center is expected to open this spring across from Richmond City Hall.

But, Swanger said he realized right away that it would be too far for residents of central Contra Costa County.

Over the past two years, Swanger said he started lobbying public officials, including Grayson, who said the idea became “planted in (his) soul.”

The center was funded through a mix of private donations and a $250,000 appropriation from the city of Concord, according to Grayson and council meeting minutes.

Magnus said the impact of having the center in Richmond has been “significant.”

“Our goal from a policing standpoint is to reduce domestic violence and provide victims with the services they need,” Magnus said. “But there’s more than one service they need, so the goal … has been to create a one-stop shop.”

Magnus said the county’s ultimate goal is to open a center to serve residents of east Contra Costa County. Antioch police Chief Allan Cantando said he’s eager for a similar center to open for his residents.

“I’m very impressed with the quality of what I’ve seen today. This is a top-grade facility,” Cantando said. “When there are resources to plug people into, it definitely helps the (police) officers, but more importantly it helps the people who need those services.”

Otto Warmbier was arrested in January 2016 at the end of a brief tourist visit to North Korea. He had been medically evacuated and was being treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center when he died at age 22.